Close Reading #4

Mike Adams: A Queer Need for Rejection

http://www.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147529920

            These days, Gay rights are obviously a much-disputed issue. In “Mike Adams: A Queer Need for Rejection,” Adams focuses in on homosexual activism. He argues that homosexuals are activists who only try to join religious organizations for their own political benefit, and that they’re trying to repress peoples’ freedom of speech, among other things. Adams develops his scathing message about homosexuals through his use of details, diction, and syntax.

            Adams is careful in the details that he chooses to include. Specifically, he chooses to talk about the civil rights movement, and relate that to the Gay rights movement that is going on today. He writes that the civil rights movement “has become little more than a mechanism used to suppress political speech,” and then writes “redefining homophobia now serves the same function.” By choosing to relate the civil rights movement to homosexual activists, Adams strengthened his message because it provides people with an example to compare this current issue with. Plus, the whole idea of suppressing “political speech” makes the homosexual rights movement seem unconstitutional, which further makes the movement seem like a bad thing to readers.

             Perhaps Adams biggest ally in creating his message was diction. First off, he never once refers to the homosexual activists as people. Adams uses words like “they,” “homosexuals” and “activists,” but never once as even “these people.” This helps to de-humanize homosexuals, which makes readers sympathize a whole lot less with Gay people. This divide grew even wider when Adams appealed to the readers, writing “isn’t that similar to what we have seen…” This strengthens Adams message because it makes homosexual activists seem like these aliens, these things that simply don’t belong with “us.” At that point, it would be easier for readers to believe Adams’ message.

            Finally, the author uses a lot of sentence variety to lend more legitimacy to his writing. For example, Adams writes “so they become targets of homosexual activism. Paradoxically, homosexual activists also target conservative Christians because being rejected by them is an important part of the process…” It is sentence structure like this that makes him come across as more educated, and therefore as having more of a legitimate opinion. Because of this, readers are more likely to believe the message, no matter what the message actually is. If someone were to read one opinion in a People magazine, and an opinion on the same issue by a Harvard professor, they would be more apt to believe the Harvard professor, no matter what either of the opinions said.

            In other words, Adams’ opinion/message is helped greatly by his use of these three techniques. His view that the homosexual rights movement is completely stupid and even repressive is obviously extremely strong. However, he gets that message across easier and more persuasively to readers through his almost clever use of details, diction, and syntax.